


What Normal Really Is

by jazzfic



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Post-Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:50:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2706305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Peeta learns that there’s no real recipe for parenting. Mistakes and all, this is something they’re starting from scratch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Normal Really Is

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 2014 Fandom4LLS charity drive. Thank you to Trippy for beta reading.

It’s only just happened, this moment he’s been imagining for so many years, and already Peeta is beginning to feel the doubts creeping in. 

And worryingly, it’s the trivial things that are affecting him the most. Mrs. Everdeen has brought along two other women from the new district hospital to assist her, but despite having been told some five or eleven times since the previous afternoon, he has – somehow – managed to forget their names. He knows it’s a small thing, completely irrelevant, and it shouldn’t matter. Except for some reason this tiny lapse is giving him so much angst and indecision that he feels unable to do even the simplest thing, which, obviously here, is to obey his customary politeness and ask again. Because it’s not as if anyone’s going to care. On this of all days he may have the most honest excuse that can be given; he’s sleep deprived, worried, and pre-occupied; but he has _forgotten_ , that is the real and important issue here, a small voice keeps telling him, and he can’t seem to move past it.

Damp sweat pricks at his chest. He takes in a breath, deep and sharp, until he feels his lungs pinch. With everything he can muster he tries to narrow his focus, willing that voice to shut the hell up because he’s no use to anyone like this, especially not to – 

“How do I hold her?” asks Katniss. She’s quiet, pale with exhaustion. “Her head, it – it doesn’t seem safe...”

Peeta watches, entirely helpless. He begins rolling his weight on the balls of his feet to shoot the feeling away, then he hears a chuckle, followed by a smile that’s warm and reassuring. Gentle arms guide Katniss into the right position. “It’s safe, child, I promise. You’re doing fine.”

The women move purposefully around the bed, edging Peeta from Katniss’s side until he’s forced to step away. His view is reduced to the back of a dress, a pattern of ivy leaves on pale green. Distractedly, his artist’s eyes pick up how the colors have dropped several tones from too many washes, but he forces himself to look past it. He sees dark hair, not belonging to Katniss. Tightness coils in his throat, a sharp and growing thread of anxiety shooing any euphoria away. The hair is soft, like gosling down. The tightness turns into a rope. He wonders briefly if he has fathered a goose.

Her voice almost breaks him in half when she says, “Mom?” And when Mrs. Everdeen replies, Peeta takes his chance to scoot around to the other side. He’s near the window now, he can feel the breeze catch his shirt and lift it from his lower back. The sweat sticks, chilled as an ice block, where it catches his skin. 

“Katniss,” he says, letting his hands run over her shoulders, pressing his nose to her cheek, as close as he dares. But the words don’t register. He’s fighting a rope, breathing past knots that are forming in his chest because he knows everything will pass, soon, and when that happens those knots will unravel and disintegrate. Because it’s nothing to the fear in her eyes, and as long as it remains there he won’t call her out on it. All he can do is wait, as he loves her; love, the thing that was once more complicated than a war turned backward, the thing that is now the easiest and most real excuse he has.

Peeta tries again.

“Katniss, look at me.”

“Do you see?” she whispers.

“Yes...”

Something slides away. “Do you see her?” Her voice gains strength, quite suddenly, and it runs through him; she takes his hand with a force that surprises him, and something slides away, some of the fear, a piece of the knot perhaps, the toughest. The one yanking sharply, that’s binding his wrist to hers and painted in silver to mirror a handcuff. Like a wire, he thinks, a wire made of bronze to turn a chink into a hole, wide enough to swallow them both. Her lips are dry, the skin cracking as they give way to a smile. It’s maybe the bravest thing he can imagine, the bravest thing he’s ever seen her do. Her face swims before him. It splits into pieces, through tears he can’t rid of fast enough. “Peeta, we have a daughter.”

“Yes,” he says, again. “Yes.”

 

::

 

She’s the lightest thing he’s known. He walks in circles because he needs surety, even if it’s just knowing where his feet are while he stares down at her scrunched up ball of a face. Light, as if he were drawing up a cup of flour. He doesn’t know yet how to read her, these indistinguishable expressions that all scream _baby, baby_. There are the tearful ones; he hears crying and thinks he’s hurting her, so he walks faster until he makes himself dizzy. There are the closed-in, closed-up ones of sleep. He likes those the best. He likes the calmness of stirring milk at one-am while watching insects throw themselves at the window, each hit made with a force increasing, as if the tiny things are seeking a piece of his beating heart that the darkness somehow lacks. 

He needs surety, that’s true. Most of all he’d just like to know at what point he can be sure of his ability to be a father.

 

::

 

“Haven’t you named that poor kid yet?” 

Haymitch leans against the kitchen bench and throws a long scowl across the room. His fingers are streaked with dirt. He’s been trying his hand at building a compost heap, without a whole lot of success. Peeta looks out the window and counts the tools that have been thrown about in disgust, making a mental note to go over in the morning and do what he can before the whole thing turns into another salvage heap for empty bottles, the current and long-standing theme to their old mentor’s yard. 

“We’ve narrowed down a list,” he says, wringing out a damp washcloth at the sink and dumping it into Hatmitch’s hands, frowning at him to get cleaned up. He nods towards Katniss, who’s sitting on the couch, head down, bundle in arms.

“Oughta just name it Squirt, if you ask me,” grumbles Haymitch. “Seeing as that’s all she does. An’ from both ends, too--” He catches sight of Peeta’s narrowed eyes then and stops, shaking his head. “Ah, don’t go lookin’ at me like that. Playin’ house hasn’t sucked all the humor out of you, yet, surely?”

Peeta and Katniss speak at the same time, their take-no-bullshit tones perfectly matched. “Yes.”

“And we are not playing _house_ ,” adds Peeta, waving Haymitch to one side so he can get to the plates. He sets out places for three on the table, methodically lining up the cutlery. There’s a little bit of Effie in him now, keeping up a sense of propriety, keeping nice things for occasions when nice has real meaning. Whether that be a shamble of breakfast where he and Katniss share one spoon and bowl because neither had time to wash the dishes, or whether it’s having their grump of a neighbor come by, it doesn’t matter. Because there’s owing in love, too, even when it takes the form of insults and half-dug out holes. 

He watches Katniss as she puts the baby down. It seems that every new family in the district with a hammer and bit of reclaimed lumber had decided individually to gift them with the same thing, with the awkward result being that they now have in their possession nearly a dozen cribs. Mollified by generosity and a sense of obligation, plus the fact that he didn’t know what else to do, Peeta had dutifully placed one in every room, gave two to Mrs. Everdeen, and one, despite his better wishes, to Haymitch. He doesn’t want to think what Haymitch might be using it for. A vestibule for white liquor in candy pink is the only thing that comes to mind.

“Eh, whatever you say.” Haymitch sits down with a thump, the force of it sending the legs of his chair shifting with a nails on a chalkboard screech across the floor. 

Katniss appears at the table and slaps him gently on the shoulder. “Hey! Watch it with the noise,” she mutters. 

“With pleasure. Rather eat without talkin’, anyway.”

Peeta has doubts of any form of voluntary silence lasting more than a few seconds with those two being within spitting distance of each other, but keeps this to himself as he serves the food. The rice is overcooked and sticks to his spoon when he tries to put it onto the plates, so he has to throw his shoulder into it, and an anticipatory quiet descends upon the kitchen as the others watch his efforts become more and more desperate. He swallows a curse and sends a glare in the direction of the table, only to be met with two pairs of uncharacteristically merry eyes. “Well, I’m glad you all find this entertaining,” he says. “By all means, laugh at the cook. I only spent the whole afternoon making dinner.”

“Huh. When I came down you were taking a nap,” says Katniss.

“Yes, that’s very true. I did take a nap.”

“While the rice was cooking--”

“--While the rice was cooking,” Peeta finishes, not missing a beat. He exhales sharply and brings the plates over. “There, feel free to pick it apart with your fingers, I don’t care.”

Nobody speaks as he grabs the small dish of pepper, intentionally taking up time to sprinkle it out in the shape of a letter ‘P’ while he waits for his face to cool. After a moment he senses Katniss watching him. “You done?” she asks in an undertone.

They exchange glances over the water jug. Not a smile. An almost smile. A sort of flickering acknowledgement, the sharing of unsettled feelings that both know only too well. She moves her hand and Peeta brushes his thumb across her wrist and shifts his eyes past the living room arch to the crib, lit by the dying coals of the fire. He takes a bite, working his jaw on the meat, which is a little overdone, and starts to ask, “How is she?” when the pepper surprises him by scooting into his nose. 

He sneezes. Drops of gravy scatter across the tabletop. There’s a quite lengthy pause before Haymitch’s shoulders begin to shake with suppressed laughter. “Sorry,” says Peeta. “I’ll, um. Get a cloth...”

Katniss waits until he’s dabbed the mess away and sat back down before answering the question he hadn’t quite gotten out. “She’s fine. Full.”

She shifts in her chair, not meeting his gaze and returning to her food, chewing slowly. Peeta’s eyes dart very quickly to the swell of her breasts, then back to her face, where he finds a new sort of smile, hidden partly behind her hair. He’s suddenly distracted by the shape of her lips. “Uh-huh,” he says, his own fork poised in mid-air. 

Haymitch brings his glass down with a thud, making them jump. “Okay, new dinner rule. No _goggling_ across the table when guests are trying to eat. Go back to your little domestic, please, that was much more entertaining.” 

Peeta raises an eyebrow. “Goggling?” he repeats. “I think you’ve been around those geese too much. We do not goggle. Katniss and I _parent_. It’s a new and exciting role, full of... ups and downs.”

He feels, ridiculously, like a teenager just then, trying not to snort out more mess over their nice place-setting, to lower the tone of this very sober moment. But a teenager he isn’t, a kid he’ll never be again; his daughter lies in a wheat-colored blanket not five yards away, and they’ve only got time before them now. 

“You just want me to eat and go, don’t you?” says Haymitch darkly. 

Two nods, solemn and steadfast and quiet as the ticking clock, answer this together. 

 

::

 

They do have a list. That part is true, at least. Peeta is very much aware that nine months was more than enough time to choose a name, but the truth is they were scattered and more than a little bewildered. They still are. And he imagines they will continue in this sideways stumbling way until one or both of them knocks into the dense, metaphorical woods, gets scratched up and sore, eventually finding the way out by grasping onto sense and the realisation that whatever happens, well, will happen. He likes the name Violet because heck, he’s sentimental, and the part of him that thrills in watching a tab of watercolor paint dissolve from the touch of his brush still has a reach he can’t shake. 

Even so, he tucks away Haymitch’s suggestion, adding it to the growing and mostly private list of nicknames he’s quite prepared to haul out at every possible moment from here on in, if it’s while beating cake batter, or painting the girl’s namesake onto eggshells. 

Or seeing the real thing on the day she gets married, plaited like stars turned to color in her hair. 

 

::

 

“Saw a bird,” says Katniss, one night. 

He turns over in bed, glancing at her. She’s half sitting up, eyes trained to a nowhere spot in the middle distance. “A turkey. This morning, in the woods. Good size, too. Came out of nowhere, sprung like a shot right by my feet. I thought they’d moved on, this late in the season. But this one was on its own.”

“You miss it?” he asks, rolling back with a yawn. 

“Didn’t try.”

He snorts a little. There’s more here she’s not telling him, but it doesn’t matter. He’s fine being left with a little mystery. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Her breath hitches slightly. “I’m not entirely heartless. Besides, I had more than I could carry. You saw that buck. Took me near an hour just to haul it ’cross town.”

“I know. I think your face is still red.”

“And I think _your_ eyebrows are still somewhere up on our kitchen ceiling,” she says, a little too loudly.

“Ouch.” Peeta reaches over without looking. Her knuckles bump restlessly into the soft skin of his palm. “Okay, we’re even.”

The cry from across the hall is soft, barely audible. He sighs, dragging his hand back and rubbing it over his face. The tip of his nose is cold.

“No, I’ll go,” he says, feeling her begin to move.

She sits up anyway. “Peeta...”

He’s halfway out, and turns with a question poised, only to be surprised by her lips. They peck at his nose, at the chilled skin, then she’s tilting her head and looking down, considering him, a smile forming as she flicks a sudden and playful finger at his chin. She moves to take his open mouth against hers. The kiss is coyly tentative, and Peeta leans across the bed, attempting to drag it into something more by putting his weight against her gently; but Katniss, having had her fill, lets her breath go in a rush and shoves him away. 

“Okay, now you can go,” she says, flopping back into the pillows.

There’s a quarter moon in the sky tonight. It shines through a pair of plain white curtains, throwing only the faintest of real light into the room. He walks over to the crib, waiting for those large eyes to pick out his face. Tears stain her cheeks, but she’s quiet now, attentive to his presence, and when he smooths down the silk edge of her comforter and tickles her cheek, new color buds at her skin. She squirms happily. He says, over and again, “Are you sleepy, is my baby sleepy?” and each time she stares back, open mouthed, breaths busy and humming. 

He watches her until she falls asleep, and when he returns to bed, Katniss notches her chin against his shoulder and her arms slip around his torso to play across his stomach. “All good?” she asks.

Peeta nods. They remain there, still and quiet for long a moment before he smiles, trapping her hand. “All good,” he repeats, and he turns carefully, pressing her down. 

Almost instantly, the mood changes. With little of his own doing, Peeta notes, not that he’s really complaining. They’ve grown a lot together, more capable emotionally than they’ve probably ever been, and child or no, it doesn’t take much for the urge to spring up.

So to speak. 

Even so, Katniss seems intent on talking her way through this one. “I’m going to look again tomorrow,” she says. She’s slipping fast, though, her breath coming in thick pulls and gasps as their kisses turn hungry. The words are barely that, more of a sigh cut up and slapped unevenly together, and he reaches between their bodies, feeling her ready, how she’s trembling very slightly. He nips at her lower lip and she arches into his hand, adding with a gasp, “That bird’s got nothing on me.”

“So sentimental...”

“Does that mean you’ll be doing the plucking for me, hmm?”

“Nope,” says Peeta smoothly. His moment of conviction amuses him for some reason – a stupid reason, really – and for perhaps one whole second he thinks about turning these little scraps of conversation into a proper debate. But as his audience at this point consists mostly of the sheets and a generous portion of Katniss’s lower body, he decides against it. Also, she’s sweet and warm beneath his lips, and so distracting that he’s pretty sure were he to be called upon it, his normally dazzling vocabulary would barely hold him steady to any degree beyond a dry-mouthed murmur of assent.

There’s a break in sound as she pulls even closer, her fingers raking through his hair, holding fast. Silence, and then he hears her exhale, sharp and fast at her weakness wins out. Peeta tries very hard not to smile. “Then shut up,” she says.

He always was comfortable in following her lead.

 

::

 

Is it strange that he’s happy? He wonders that, more often than he should. More often than is reasonable, he’s sure, or normal. But then of course he wonders what normal really is, he wonders this every day, and plainly there’s nobody here about willing to look him in the eye to ever answer that question. So his musings don’t get very far, no matter how long he stands at the kitchen window, staring outside as his hands perform motor functions that no amount of tampering can erase from his memory. It has taken time to get here, to not feel guilty. Peeta tries not to think of before, scrappy and misplaced as things are in his mind – he’s still afraid of what might return. 

But he finds the trying easier. That’s the thing he didn’t realise then, not fully, at least. Now they’re starting again. It’s okay if they don’t always get it right. 

Outside, it’s raining. In the kitchen, shrill cries tumble one on top of the other, and here he paces, holding the baby and whispering nonsense words. It’s late, the rest of the house is dark but for the small overhead light and a dying fire in the next room. 

He’s not alone. Katniss leans against the sink; she’s been up since dawn, and watches him with an expression that’s washed out and well beyond tired. Neither hold out hope for sleep tonight, but despite this – or maybe because of it – both stand willing, as much as it scares them, because just being here is more life than they’d bargained for. It’s terrible and beautiful, this thing they’re in charge of. It’s warmth against his shoulder. It’s the new peace in her eyes, even now, when she can barely keep them open.

“Go,” Peeta says at last. He angles his head to the stairs, his hand splayed across Violet’s swaddled back. He doesn’t question how something so small can make so much noise. He’s seen and heard worse. Nothing will ever be as bad as that. “She’s tireder than both of us combined. She’ll drop just like that.” 

He stands before her, his free hand cupping her cheek. He feels her sigh and lean against him. “I mean it, Katniss. I can’t catch you both. Go.” 

She nods. “Come get me if--”

“I’m fine. We’re fine.”

“Okay,” she says. His eyes stay at her back as she disappears to the stairs. 

If they can learn anything in this game, he thinks, in this moment watching one turn from the other, it’s knowing they’re not separated by anything, not anymore, and they needn’t search for it when they have this. He can see what’s before them, a shadow scattered with bright and dark, patches of sunlight on the floor. Cribs splintering wood with the paint rubbed off, charcoal drawings on the walls and a new squirrel pelt fashioned into a hat, to be presented by a small and solemn giver to Uncle Haymitch on his birthday. Days will end as they begin, break again as they complete. He brushes a kiss to his daughter’s dark curls, bouncing her and releasing a smile Katniss won’t see into the hiccups and tears. He turns slowly in the kitchen, waltzing without grace to a very old song; thinking about what he remembers and still loves, imagining his father were here, too.

Still raining. Peeta can’t make out anything past his own reflection, but he sees the rain, every drop.

“I’ll bake you a pie, little girl,” he says.


End file.
